Gateway 1.8GHz QuadCore Media Center with HDMI

Isn’t there some guy on woot threads that is always coming in explaining to everyone how DVI and HDMI are the same thing? Wonder when he’ll stroll in here.

Can you READ?

18X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti Drive featuring Labelflash™ Technology

18X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti Drive featuring Labelflash™ Technology

Ummm…not sure…

Yes, the description lists a Super-Multi drive, which is code for “burns CDs and DVDs”. It also has Labelflash, which allows you to burn a label on the disc (if you buy specially-made and much more expensive Labelflash DVDs).

Meh. I have a laptop with a dual-core and the ATI Radeon 3200 graphics and it runs Fallout 3 at low rez at about 30fps. You can stick a better video card in this, though, which I can’t do with my laptop.

300w power supply? That would be the first thing that got replaced in this. Then again I prefer to build my own systems rather than buy them. I like knowing exactly what is in my computer. And if something goes wrong, I can only blame myself.

Most Towers don’t have wifi built in it.

Here’s the CNET review for this system

Massive hard drive, though. Worth the money for the parts of the system to put in another machine.

I would suggest no one buys this if they plan on upgrading anything inside besides replacing a cd drive or hd. Friend got this same computer (from best buy and twice the price 3 months ago lol) and it did not have a pci express slot and only 1 pci slot. Great barebones cpu but do not attempt to upgrade it. Also its on a 300 watt power supply. If you need a barebones computer that is generally fast, this would be nice.

P.S. Lol at the woot picture and the old connector for the keyboard lol

Will the gpu on this run two 24" monitors at 1920 x 1200. Can you add a monster gpu and power supply to this thing?

not really any computer is engerystar approved, due to the fact that home computera are generally low power machines already.

but the details say 300W, thats basically 5 60w bulbs which is not much the least bit in the grand scheme of things

I made the mistake of buying a Gateway quad core machine a year and a half ago. Because of shoddy design, the CPU overheated because the graphics card was too close to the CPU and the fan was not vented out the back of the unit.

As a result, the unit kept overheating and then shutting down. After taking it in to a tech specialist, he said that the only thing that would fix it was a new motherboard and that he recommended against that expense.

I harvested the hard drive and gave the box to goodwill. I then wordered a Dell from their outlet store. I’ve had it for months now with zero overheating problems. I opened it up before using it and guess what? The fan vents to the outside and the gap between the CPU and the graphics card is significant. It also has two fans where the Gateway had only one fan.

I will never, ever buy another Gateway. Only a fool would buy a Gateway. They are crap.

My current desktop is a 3.6 duo core. Would a 1.8 quad core really be an upgrade or would it run at about the same speed?

How are Gateways when it comes to upgrading the Power Supply? I’m not looking at a unit with a non-standard size PSU so the manufacturer can charge out the A** for one am I?

The CNET Editor only gave this 2 out of 5 stars. They said it is mediocre and it was last or next to last in performance when compared to similar pc’s. 6 users gave it 3.5 stars. More details here.

Will this integrated graphics card handle playing blu-ray movies if i put a player in?

A refurb is unlikely to qualify for free upgrades, however I once got a free vista upgrade for a Compaq laptop which was a refurb. I never installed it since it had xp proffesional on it.

Does the 1.8Ghz processor make it a bad choice for gaming?

My Dell does. It’s 2 years old. Yes the thing sucks but not on wi fi

If you are going to upgrade the video card, better plan on upgrading the power supply as well.

If you have a Core 2 Duo a Phenom X4 (not Phenom II X4) at 1.8Ghz would be much slower in almost everything and not an upgrade but a downgrade.